In a World of Reversed Chastity, I Strive to Become an Honorable Male Knight, but Lustful Women Keep Targeting My Body - 291

Chapter 291: The Kukkoro Male Knight and the Village at Night 2

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“…Are you all safe!? I am Albert Blondin, Castellan of Liseben! I have come to rescue you!”

Stepping forward, I shouted those words. If possible, I wanted to run straight to them and loosen their bindings immediately, but considering the possibility of traps, that was not an option. The people being held captive (though it was unclear if “hostages” was the right term) were roughly tied up and carelessly lined up. It looked like an illegal dumping site for trash. It was a cruel treatment, but from a distance, there did not appear to be any large-scale traps such as bombs or incendiaries set up.

“Liseben!? Did Liseben really come to save us!? I thought we had been abandoned!”

“That was a man’s voice… what is going on?”

The men and children were bound, but their mouths were not gagged. Hearing their confused voices, I let out a small breath of relief. Their way of speaking was not the Elven accent I had grown used to recently, but rather a Gallean-style dialect. It seemed these men truly were those who had been taken from Liseben.

When faced with the victims directly, I could not help but feel, “What the hell have these people done?” Well, leaving aside the long-lived elves, the bird-people would go extinct without males, so from their perspective there might be some unavoidable circumstances… but that kind of excuse would not matter to those who had been kidnapped.

“Is it true… are you really the lord of Liseben? I thought Liseben was a direct territory of the royal family…”

An older man asked that question. It seemed they had not been told about the current situation in Liseben by the elves. Well, it looked like the elves had no intention of returning the men, so they would not go out of their way to tell them about their homeland and make them long for it. …What a fucked-up situation.

“There were various circumstances. I will explain them in detail later. More importantly, what about all of you? Is anyone injured or seriously ill?”

Even now, Vanka’s faction might set something up. And there were also concerns about the men and children’s physical condition, so I wanted to attend to them as quickly as possible. But if I rushed too much and triggered a trap, that would be the worst outcome. Balancing speed and caution was the difficult part here.

“We are fine. We were treated rather roughly, but at most it is just some scrapes,” the older man explained. However, behind him, one young man was shouting, “Please save us already!” and a small Elven child (a real child, not one of Dalaiya’s imposters) was crying, “Father!” The scene was absolute chaos. It was so noisy that it interfered with conversation.

“I apologize, but please remain quiet for now. It is necessary to ensure your safety,” I said in as gentle a voice as I could while looking around at them. All of them had gone pale. That was understandable. One day they were living their normal lives, and suddenly those who had lived in the same settlement turned against them. The psychological shock must have been greater than the physical one.

The noise was likely an attempt to distract themselves from anxiety. I understood that feeling well, so asking them to be quiet was… no, it was quite difficult emotionally. Still, I had to harden my heart for now. Once the adults had mostly calmed down, I cleared my throat.

“No injuries, then that is good. Now, we will be releasing you, but before that I have one question. When you were restrained, did they set any kind of traps?”

Planting explosives among hostages was a classic tactic in situations like this. I had seen it countless times in my previous life. Human malice had no bottom. One could never be too cautious.

“No, nothing like that… at least, as far as we understand. I do not know what exactly happened, but some of us were bound by our wives or mothers. I do not think they would do something so cruel to their husbands or children…”

Is that really true? When people are cornered, they will do anything. Sacrificing family would not be impossible. 

…Still, if there were bombs (or incendiaries, since the elves did not have gunpowder), even men inexperienced in warfare would likely notice them. So perhaps there really were no large-scale traps. However, it was also possible that the men were collaborating with Vanka’s faction and lying to us in order to set up a suicide attack. They were victims of abduction, but that did not mean they could be trusted blindly. Cases of victims falling under their captors’ influence were not rare. The so-called Stockholm syndrome.

“Very well, that is fine. Then we will remove your restraints. We will escort you to a safe place, so please do not panic or cause a disturbance.”

After saying that, I turned my gaze to my subordinates.

“The release operation will be handled by the naval infantry. However, the elves are more experienced in detecting and disarming traps. Lady Dalaiya, lend me some of your people.”

“Hm, that is fine, but…”

Lady Dalaiya raised an eyebrow and glanced at the elven soldiers. As expected, they looked dissatisfied.

“Aren’t those men and children from our village? Shouldn’t we be the ones to rescue them properly?”

“That’s right. My niece is among them too. Are we supposed to just stand here and watch?”

Well, that was understandable. From our perspective, they were abductees, but from the elves’ perspective, they were already people of their city. They would naturally resist outsiders taking control of the rescue.

Still, if there truly were large and deadly traps, it would be better for the elves to handle the dangerous work. However, if we left it entirely to them, negotiations for bringing the men back to Liseben would likely become complicated. We needed them to be handled by Liseben’s forces if possible.

“No. If the enemy attacks during the operation, we need to keep as many capable fighters free as possible. We must be able to respond immediately if something happens…”

“I, I suppose we do not want to be protected by youngsters either…”

“If we do not know how Vanka’s old hag will act, anything is possible…”

After a bit of flattery, they immediately became like this. Elven soldiers were too easy. While I was exasperated, Lady Dalaiya gave me a half-smile and winked, as if to say, “See? You are getting the hang of it.” Anyway, that was that. I ordered the naval infantry forward to begin the release operation. My subordinates carefully approached the bound captives and began checking for traps.

……

This was the moment of tension. I maintained a natural posture while preparing to drop to the ground at a moment’s notice. A massive explosion upon touching a hostage would not have been surprising. Tension spread among the elves and knights alike. With rifles and elven bows in hand, they scanned the surroundings without letting their guard down. Even without bombs, they might still fire arrows at the soldiers during the operation. The plaza was lit by numerous bonfires, making them visible from all directions. Ranged weapons were a serious threat.

Ideally, I wanted to extinguish the bonfires. But doing so would reduce visibility and make trap detection harder. That was also a problem. A serious problem. Between suppressive fire and explosives, I feared explosives more, so we reluctantly continued the operation as is.

“No traps detected!”

The naval infantry commander reported loudly. I tapped the visor of my helmet with my finger.

“…Anything buried in the ground?”

“No traces of that either.”

“Hm…”

So far, there was no sign of enemy movement. The night of Runga City was eerily calm. Which meant…

“Send a messenger to Lady Orphan! ‘Remain alert for enemy attack. The enemy’s target is you.’ Now, move!”

By all appearances, this was a trap. And yet there was no enemy action. That meant this was a decoy. A diversion to draw our attention to the traps while the real attack came from somewhere else entirely.

“Al-sama, could it be that Vanka is…”

Sonia seemed to have reached the same conclusion. I nodded in response to her strained voice.

“Yes, most likely. It seems that woman intends to wage war only for personal vengeance. From start to finish, she plans to keep us out of the equation entirely…!”

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